Eldritch Visions of Cthalloween

Guest-blogger Will Hindmarch is a freelance writer, graphic designer, and game designer. He also blogs at the game/story outfit, Gameplaywright, at his home venue, The Gist and at the tumblelog, the Word Studio Notebook.

I went into the event with hardly a plan in mind, writing as things struck me, aiming more for mood than story, because I figured only a few people would catch more than a few tweets at a time. Plus, I had to bail before the end of the event, due to Halloween parties and my untweetable phone. Maybe that was an ill-thought plan, but I’d been focused on too many other writing assignments to really devote much time to planning this little riff. So it goes.

What I ended up with is a little less than 700 words of somewhat creepy ramblings with a bit allegory, I think. In hindsight, this reveals more about what I find scary, I think, than it does anything about how to write horror.

What was planned was the notion of taking something omnipresent and trying to twist it towards the macabre somehow. That is my go-to formula for horror, whether it’s in fiction or games or the performance art of running storytelling games. What was also planned was the idea of my character being a melange of the suggested archetypes (Citizen, Artist, Professor, and Cultist) â€” I went with the Citizen’s paranoia, the Artist’s chilling visions, and a trace of the Cultist’s lunacy. You tell me if any of this ended up at all creepy or Lovecraftian.

If I had this to do over (like, say, if another MMOSE happens), I’d create a character that wasn’t so isolated and unraveled, so that I could directly interact with the tweets of other writers, especially locals like @Servantofproces. Instead, I tried to keep my tale small (without giving up the Lovecraftian alien monstrosities).

Here, then, is my #Cthalloween story (“story”), modestly edited but still in the form of its original 140-character bursts, and with a lurid purple title slapped on it:

Branches Beneath The Silver Tower

Bad dreams last night. Yet the further I get from sleep, the sharper the images get. I remember branches, black branches.

Trying to shake last night’s abnormal dreams. Going for a walk to take in some jack-o-lanterns. Neighborhood’s real quiet.

People are just standing at their windows, staring out into the street. Staring at me, as I walk by. Pumpkins are glowing.

The rain has stripped the leaves from the trees. Naked trees arch over the street above me, tangled black branches.

Back home, where the trees seem bare, not like they were when I left. Locking the doors.

Last night’s dream getting sharperâ€”black branches snaking against a sky of pallid clouds, and a sound like chewing.

Trying to work, but when I blink I see serpentine veins pumping black sap. I picture hooves pounding quaggy ground.

Teeth. I remember I dreamed about gnashing teeth pressing through a vulgar slit in wet bark.

Trying to get the silhouette out of my mind. Snaking branches, tipped with beckoning fingers. NPR says more are dead.

Want to sleep, to get out of these thoughts, but I’m afraid I’ll see more. Let the vodka decide if I sleep or not.

Slept all of twenty minutes, woke up, I thought, to a drop of something wet on my forehead. Had a new dream…

Related

Trackbacks

[…] a big fan ever since. He’s a cut-the-vein open kind of blogger, but he’s also smart, talented and an […]

About Jeff VanderMeer

Photo by Kyle Cassidy

Jeff VanderMeer's most recent fiction is the NYT-bestselling Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance), released in 2014 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Foreign rights have sold in 17 countries and the movie rights have been acquired by Paramount Pictures/Scott Rudin Productions. His latest nonfiction books include Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction (Abrams Image). His nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, Atlantic.com, Vulture.com, and the Los Angeles Times. VanderMeer recently taught at the Yale Writers’ Conference and has lectured at MIT and the Library of Congress. You can contact him at pressinfo at vandermeercreative.com. (Author photo by Kyle Cassidy.) More...